The Liberal Democrats have gained the Yaxley and Farcet in a Cambridgeshire County Council by-election triggered by the death of Conservative councillor Mac McGuire.
Lib Dem Andrew Richard Wood secured 509 votes to beat Kev Gulson, who was representing the Conservative Party and received 470 votes.
Sally Ann Howell, an Independent, polled 448 votes followed by Labour’s Richard Ilett with 175 votes and the Green Party’s Ellisa Westerman with 42. The turnout was 20 per cent.
The win means the Lib Dems, who run the council as a coalition with their Labour and Independent colleagues, are now the authority’s biggest party.
Cllr McGuire – or Mac as he was known to councillors, council staff and the residents he served in the Yaxley and Farcet division – was the county council’s longest serving councillor, having first been elected to the county council from 1985 to 1992, and then again continuously from 1997.
